Principal's Message

Eleni Petheriotis

Every family who enters the school via the Koonung Rd entrance will be familiar with our wonderful crossing supervisor, Eleni Petheriotis. Eleni does a superb job looking after the safety and wellbeing of our students and families and always carries out her duties with diligence, commitment and a significant measure of kindness and care.

Earlier this year, Eleni reached a couple of incredible milestones; 25 years of service with the City of Whitehorse and 20 years of service to Old Orchard. Today we acknowledged Eleni with a special morning tea and a couple of other surprises (see photos on the following page).  Perhaps take a moment to say a special thank-you and maybe help your children write a card or similar to show Eleni how much we all value and appreciate her efforts.

Swimming Program

Our Whole School Swimming Program will run from November 13th to 24th at Aquanation in Ringwood. The swimming program is an extremely important part of our program each year, providing the opportunity for students to develop their swimming technique and skills and also to learn essential water safety strategies. Thank-you to our school community for your ongoing and high level of support of this program.

Trial Timetable

We are using the interrupted week to trial a new timetable for Wednesday 8th - Friday 10th November.

The morning block will be 9.00 - 11:05

Recess 11:05 - 11:35

Middle block 11:35 - 1:40

Lunch eating 1:40 - 1:50

Lunch play 1:50 - 2:40

Afternoon block 2:40 - 3:30

We would like to encourage students to bring a larger snack that allows them to feel comfortable through until 1:40 eating time.

Acknowledgement of Country

Earlier this year, some of our Year 6 leaders worked with our local KESO (Koori Education Support Officer) to rework our Acknowledgement of  Country. The Acknowledgement of  Country is read by students or staff prior to significant events or gatherings such as assemblies, School Council meetings, the beginning of each school week and more. Understanding, recognising and appreciating the place and importance of the Aboriginal people in our history is incredibly important and this is one small way in which we can help to facilitate this understanding.

Wawa, Wominjika.

Here at Old Orchard Primary School, we acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on today, the Wurrunguri and Woiwurrung people of the Kulin nation.We acknowledge and respect the leaders past, present and evolving and all of the cultures and nationalities that are part of the Old Orchard Primary School community.We express our gratitude towards the orchards that were kept in place by the peoples on this land before us.We thank the traditional owners for sharing this beautiful land that we all love, and for keeping the land, sky, waterways and animals all in great condition for thousands of years, not only for themselves but for all the generations to come.

Thank-you.

Parents & Friends Association - Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting of our PFA will be held on Friday November 10th at 9.00am in the staffroom. The PFA is an extremely important group within our school, focussing on community involvement and fundraising. This year’s team, led by Leah Delany, have been very active and have made a terrific contribution to our school and community. We would love to welcome additional members to the team in 2024; your involvement can be as small or large as you are comfortable with, so please don’t be shy or worried about the time commitment. I distributed detailed information about the AGM earlier this week, including nomination forms for the office bearer roles, so please refer to your emails for this information.

Colour Run

Our students had a fantastic time at Friday afternoon's Colour Run. The event was organised and coordinated by the SRC, raising around $500 in funds for the RSPCA. Look for photos of all the fun and frivolity on the next page of the newsletter.

Punctuality

Unfortunately, we have seen a slight increase in the number of students arriving late to school. I will update the data and share it in next week’s newsletter, but in the meantime ask that you give your attention to this issue and endeavour to have your children at school by 8.50am each morning. 

Kind regards

Duncan